New Time for Monthly Meeting

All monthly meetings from January 2024 onwards will be on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 2pm, at Poringland Community Centre.

Latest News

April 11th speaker - Hazel Gillingham. The Quiet Suffragette - Millicent Fawcet

Friday 13 October 2017

October 11th WI Meeting.

Our October meeting was Mr Jim Marriage giving us a talk with slides on the Rosary Cemetery.


He explained the Rosary Cemetery is the oldest nondenominal Christian cemetery in Britain. It was laid out in 1819, and opened between 1819 and 1821, but was mainly used by Dissenters, due to it being unconsecrated. It was promoted by Rev Thomas Drummond, but not recognized by the Bishop until 1821.

The Cemetery was extended in 1924 by Captain Sandys-Winsch, and again 1932. Some land to the east was sold off in 1964. There are a number of prestigious monuments, including the 1878 mausoleum of Emanuel Cooper, a celebrated eye surgeon, and the 1849 cast iron sarcophagus of Jeremiah Cozens. It is recorded that crowds visiting the cemetery in the summer led to the employment of a policeman in 1880.

Ada Nemesis Cooper, the adopted daughter of the eye surgeon Emanuel Cooper (who has a grand mausoleum on the cemetery) married the novelist John Galsworthy and their family life together inspired.
Cooper Mausoleum
Emanuel Cooper Mausoleum